CC- "Hoke..not an option"

Has Brian explained what he meant by this yet? Is this a direct quote from someone who would know, or just his personal opinion? I'm sure this has been covered, but I still think its comical how people automatically dismiss him because he isnt a big name at the moment. I've heard a lot of cfb experts weigh in and say he's a really good coach and would be a great hire for us. Yet I know we have a fickle fan base that feels we "have to have a big name coach, because we're Michigan". I think we all know Harbaugh is plan A, but if that deal doesnt get done, it will be very interesting to see Brandon's backup plan. So, I'd be very curious to know if Hoke is indeed not under consideration, and if he's not..who is. I cant really buy Fitzgerald.

But wanted to see if you know that you can set the new posts to be on the top or bottom, and if you set it for 300 per page, it'll show you all the new one's in red, so you don't have to read them all again, just scroll through.

As I could. Between the Internet, and my personality, it wasn't easy. On the actual website, check the control adjustments right over the posts (300 a little longer to load, but over 95% will be on one page, and you'll get the new label under every post that's, well, new). Even on the App you can set whether the posts go up or down on the log in page.

I completely agree with you. I don't think he'd be a bad hire. He's proven to be a good head football coach and recruiter. While I obviously hope Harbaugh is option 1, I'd like Hoke to atleast get an interview.

Just look at what Hoke starts with at a program and then ends wih at a program. He takes teams from the dumps (Ball St. and SDSU) and completely turns them around. In this instance, overall record is not something that should be looked at. Look at his record in his 2nd or 3rd year at a program and beyond, and that should give you a better understanding.

Hoke didn't have a winning season at Ball State until his fifth season at Ball State (4-8, 2-9, 4-7, 5-7, followed by 7-6). Then they had a 12 win season out of the blue, he immediately bailed for SDSU and the next year they won 2 games at BSU. Bill Lynch had been the coach prior to Hoke and he won 5, 5, and 6 games his last three years before Hoke took over (and had won the MAC a few years earlier).

To me that looks like one crazy outlier rather than a guy who steadily built an improved program.

The problem is that two-thirds of the team are so bad that hiring Hoke-a-Dope at this point might be better than retaining RichRod.

Of course, if RR convinces Brandon that he'd accept Randy Shannon as DC and that Shannon would have complete control over the scheme, assistants, etc, on that side of the ball, then RR could conceivably continue as HC at Michigan.

But anything short of that is a no-go.Not with the previous three years of data that we have to work with.

If RR stays there is little possibility that the current defensive staff stays. Some one will have to go. At least you get to keep continuity on offense, which regardless of who you bring in , will be the strength of the team. It makes more sense to me at least to try and lure in a big time DC if we miss on Harbaugh rather than change for the sake of change. I know it's been said a million times, but think ND.

His first two hires have been awful. SO why would you expect the third time to be any different?

The only way he can stay is if Brandon tells him that he(DB) will hire the DC and wil give the DC carte blanche to do what he pleases on the defensive side of the ball. That is the ONLY way RR can survive.

Only William Clay Ford would permit RR to hire another DC based off his track record.

One of those DC changes was necessitated by the fact that RR, ironically enough, hired away his DC (Shafer). Shafer had shown enough promise at Stanford for RR to pull the trigger. If he hadn't, Harbaugh presumably would have kept him. In hindsight, Shafer should have stayed.

Stop with this JH made a negative comment about Michigan stuff. It's not true. If you look at the entire comment, and what he said about it afterwards, it was not bbashing Michigan. Harbaugh had hard feelings because when he played at Michigan, he wanted to be a history major. However, Michigan wouldn't let him because he was a football player. Everything Harbaugh said was out of his love for Michigan, and was correct. Our academic standards for our athletes are know where near Stanfords. Stop blowing this innocent comment up and saying that Harbaugh "trashed the program" because he did no such thing.

If we are conducting a coaching search in the beginning of January. I am driving to AA to personally kick Brandon in the nuts. Deal is already done or Rich is back as our coach. No insider information, just common sense.

Now this is something that makes sense. Everybody needs to take a deep breath and discuss things but not pretend that our opinion is the only one out there. Unless DB is on here we are all just saying what we think. We don't KNOW what is going to happen.

We may have to conduct a coaching search if Harbaugh doesn't come, because RR is finished here. I'm not even sure he wants to stick around if he can help it. (He'd quit, but getting fired is more lucrative.) If that happens, though, it's not the end of the world - OSU did that in January 2001 and ended up with Tressel.

I just don't get the animosity on this board to Hoke. The guy is a great coach. He knows the big ten, is a great recruiter and, more than anything else, loves Michigan.

No, he is not flashy (although his team's bowl game offense was a hell of a lot more exciting than our lack of offensive production), but his teams are fundamentally sound and he improves struggling programs quickly.

While most of us think that HArbaugh is choice #1, if he doesn't come, I would welcome Hoke. He would certainly be better than another year of coaching hot seats, poor tackling, lack of execution, losing to every winning B10 team and incompetent special teams and defense.

Im not blind to the fact that the game had passed carr by but merely updating and modernizing his values to the 2011 game (which I am confident Hoke could do) is a recipe for success in the big ten and on a national level

I'm not in favor of him, but I will stand behind Hoke if he is hired. I somewhat doubt though that someone with his record is capable of implementing a modernized and successful Carr game. Les Miles is a better pick, if DB can overcome all of the politics.

The only reason people mention Hoke is because of his ties to the program. If he didnt have ties to the school nobody would mention him. It took him a quite few years to build Ball State. There are plenty of other viable options that should be looked at before Hoke.

Seriously, are we still looking at RR's track record to judge him as the coach of Michigan? I was a firm believer in RR until I watched our debacle of bowl game. We have not looked like a well coached team this entire year. And seriusly, what more could Hoke have possibly accomplished during his head coaching career? Just because he's not flashy, or doesn't have the big time head coach profile does not mean his a bad coach and does not mean he'd be a bad coach? If you are to look at his track record, and thestate of programs he originally took over, I think you could argue he'd be very succesful at Michigan. RR has not been and I don't see him ever being a succesful coach in AA.

I am a RR supporter, but I don't see how he can come back. The situation here is toxic for him. He will have very little support and IMHO, if he comes back, he is set up for failure. The bowl loss was the icing on the cake for the haters and change some minds of people on the fence about him as a coach.

If RR is going to return, he needs an extension or something to calm the skeptics over 1 more year. Having the appearance of one more year will not help the team. And I don't see anyway that DB will give him an extension after the bowl game. IMHO, I think this was why DB may have waited. He wanted to keep RR and needed some good evidence to back it up.

I agree that it shouldn't be a question, but if it is, the answer is Hoke by a mile. Hell, at this point, I would take DeBord, English, Miles, Loefler, Brian (his UFR is aweome), Profitgoblue or Mike Hart over RR.

Face it - RR has presided over the WORST ERA IN MICHIGAN FOOTBALL. That says a lot. He has destroyed our defense. He has destroyed our special teams. And, while this will be unpopular, he has harmed our offense. (Yes, tons of yards, dtnamic, exciting, #6 in the country, spread and shread . . . so long as we are facing crappy competition. Against real defense, our offense - composed largely of upper classmen - has been less than decent).

RR has brought us recruiting violations, a divided fan base, bowl-less seasons and losses to MAC teams. I have seen enough.

I wonder if cypress (OP) works in the Athletic Department (possible source of the never-ending rumors concerning Hoke)?

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This twisted fascination with a 52-year-old coach whose record (as noted elsewhere) is 47-50 *and* who has never coached at the BCS level is dazzling to me. Other than widespread panic, I really can't think of an explanation. I can't believe he's in the conversation.

How many fucking times are fucking people going to fucking bring up Gary fucking Patterson when the motherfucking motherfucker has REPEATEDLY stated he's not leaving his job. He turned down $2 million before from Minnesota, signed an extension last year, and just won the Rose Bowl and is moving to the Big Easy next season. All he needs to go is win in that division and he's guaranteed at minimum at BCS bowl every year. Jesus Christ people are fucking dense.

My bad. It was riddled with grammatical errors too. Patterson has been brought up 20 million times in the past few days, it's been shot down 20 million times and throroughly explained, and yet it keeps coming back up. Frustrating as hell.

I've lurked on here for years as a student and now as an alum-but this is getting ridiculous. This is the type of post and thread that would appear on scout or rivals- please don't let this board degenerate into something where crazy theories and lists are thrown around. Let's be realistic in our expectations.

I don't put it passed us to keep RR. Again, we have a great show man in Denard. I heard someone say today that there's alumni threatening to not renew their suites if RR comes back. That's quite laughable. If you don't feel Denard is worth coming to see then something is wrong with you.

there's probably 20 different coaches with better pedigrees than Hoke but you're stomping around acting like he's a viable option bc he went to UM. at this point, that means zero compared to moving forward effectively. RR will get a 4th year before Hoke, who is still an unknown despite his time at UM, is given the reins to a university who, if RR is fired, has "already made a mistake once."

But Hoke did not go to Michigan. He played college football at Ball State (OMG abandoned alma mater!!!!) and was the d-line coach here for 8 years after 6 years in the same job at Oregon State. The ties aren't as strong as they're made out to be other than the fact that he's said he would love to coach at Michigan, which, when compared to all the other schools he's been at makes complete sense.

Re: "In typical mgoblog fashion..." Dude, Brian didn't explain what the quotation marks meant. You can re-read his post, instead of expecting the rest of us to do something atypical. It just doesn't merit a separate post.

If you read this post it is obvious that we dropped the ball on recruiting before RR stepped foot in A2. If DB doesn't make that a priority (I dare say over being a Michigan Man) we're just spinning in the wind. So can Brady bring in the talent in an environment where people are negative recruiting against us? We must put an end to that!

A poster made a claim the other day or yesterday that Brady was the #10 pro-style QB in his class which would have put him around a 4 Star recruit. For comparison, Threet was the #9 PS QB in his class and a third star was awareded to the #11 ranked QB. I wish I could find the post because I asked for substantiation as I couldn't find any on my own. If it's true, even #10 in the nation is no coup for Hoke. Tom Brady was a prototypical Michigan QB, not shocking that we went after a big white guy with an arm in the 90s. It's not like he was Manning or Tebow coming out of HS.

I agree with you. I've researched this before and everything I saw said he wasn't highly rated and he came in as the 7th string QB at Michigan. People who try to tout Hoke blindly point to the fact that he helped recruit Tom Brady as a reason he would have success at Michigan -- i.e., Brady is great and Hoke recruited him, so Hoke must be great too. This is really grasping at straws.

He has had only two memorable years as an HC: 12-1 at Ball State with no signature wins and 9-4 at SDSU.

That's it.

Rodriguez teasily takes a flame thrower to all of that.

Honestly, just because a guy was an assistant towel boy for a national championship football team doesn't make him a "MICHIGAN MAN!", nor a great head college football coach.

There a plenty of higher profile targets Michigan should be going with. Grasping for every microscopic fiber to find some kind of past connection to Maize & Blue pedigree is the wrong way to select your future race horse. Just go after and hire the best coach you possibly can and give him the resources and support he needs to succeed. Period.

Brian put quotation marks around his "Not an option" statement, implying that somebody said it. However, it was completely unattributed. Who said it? E-mailers? Reliable sources? Brian's mailman? His cat? Was Brian quoting himself?

The question wasn't your opinion of Hoke, it was merely asking what the genesis of the quotation was.